#fireize

this room is quiet. not in the way that the abandoned mansion had been, with its silence broken by the shift of the rotting floorboards and the ghosts that weren’t her coming out of the wall —— there is a sense of peace, here. quietude gently broken by an open window, the breeze carrying the smell of salt on the air, the crash of waves from not so far away. it’s a space that’s hers that was given to her by her other half and it was —— meant to be a bedroom, perhaps.

she uses it as a studio, instead.

canvases litter the ground, propped against walls and against each other. some pristine and others a riot of colors and others a riot of greyscale and there’s a pile of unused canvases in the corner / a few frames in another. it’s a room that few bother to enter and fewer are allowed to enter and she stares at the oranges and reds and blues and purples that scream to her from this canvas. there’s paint on her hands and her face and when the door opens behind her she doesn’t quite start, but there is a tension to her shoulders : those who are allowed she’s attuned to ( save for xion on many levels ) and it’s —— an intrusion.

❝ hey, i’ve been looking —— ❞ a voice far kinder than how she had first heard it and she sees the vivid streak of red that he has before she bothers to turn and when she does : there he is. standing in the maw of the beast / on the precipice / eyes widened incrementally as if he realizes, all at once, that perhaps he shouldn’t be here.

yet he is, and her concentration is broken, and she holds a palette in one hand and a brush in the other and her face is placid and neutral and she thinks about a white room that doesn’t exist anymore. and one that does. and about his heart. the ties that bind it. the fact that ——

❝ she’s down at the beach, i think, ❞ or maybe she had disappeared again —— she reaches, subconsciously, for her heart and knows that she is safe and secure albeit not, precisely, where she is. if she wanted to —— if she concentrated ——

❝ oh, uh, thanks, ❞ he seems awkward, here. the way that he does, around her. they’re getting… somewhere, she thinks. a departure from acute discomfort at the knowledge that while he is kind he had been cruel to her and they’ve settled at a strange in between, standing at a crossroads and able to go any which way. in truth, naminé would likely leave him to his independent existence and never cross paths with him again if it weren’t for the fact that he is linked, absolutely and endlessly, to those who are linked to her.

to roxas, to xion : their best friend. to kairi : her brother.

( and upon that realization, upon kairi standing up and fleeing to him, to their long awaited reunion as BROTHER AND SISTER separated by space and time, she had wondered, abstractly, if that makes him her brother. technically, perhaps. practically, absolutely not. )

yet his bonds with them and the chains of his heart linking with theirs ensures his presence in her life and —— he’s trying, she thinks. trying to… atone? to prove that he’s a good person at his core? she doesn’t presume to understand. she doesn’t dare to assume that she knows.

he’s an intruder : but she isn’t indifferent to him. not here. not now.

❝ wow, this is a big upgrade, huh? ❞ he’s looking at her paintings and that’s not quite the invasion of privacy some may assume —— anyone can look at them. it’s simply that most don’t bother. they’re landscapes, mostly : places that she’s never been and places that she has been and a strange in between and much of the same, if you care to look. paintings of the ocean. paintings of the sunset. paintings of a clock tower. and again. and again.

a painting of a setting sun on the sea, just behind her.

❝ it’s easier, to paint things that i’m familiar with. ❞ an explanation he didn’t ask for / she offers nonetheless.

❝ yeah, of course. ❞ a placation she didn’t ask for / but he offers nonetheless.

a pause / a silence / she wonders if he saw the painting of whites and purples and reds, half hidden beneath a sunset scene of the ocean / and her : a trapped doll with clipped wings, still.

❝ y’know —— there’s more out there, if y’ever wanna see it, ❞ he means well, she thinks. he means well, almost always. he means well, outside of a castle in the darkness with its white halls and white walls and its cruel words and crueler smiles. ❝ you don’t gotta… uh… ❞

❝ i know, ❞ she cuts him off with ease and she is not the void that she has always been and she is not the wilting flower he had seen her to be and she looks at  him and he is a good person for all that he’s done bad things. she knows. she knows, always. the concept. the theory. yet the reality of it —— ❝ the forest that you and kairi trained in… it was beautiful, wasn’t it? ❞ and he’s trying / so maybe she can try, too.

far away the ocean crashes against the shore / and she imagines a forest.

@fireize

Conflict:  rage burning in her skin / underneath her artificial organs / perpetual  /  hurt and suffering loud and sharp and cutting like the crystals she once became.  Fingers twitching to grasp and break.  A child at once sure that she cannot deserve existence / love / them but also furious that she should have to believe that.  SACRIFICIAL LAMB DIED FOR THEM REMAINS QUIET FOR THEM SWALLOWS HER SUFFERING LIKE GLASS FOR THEM AND SHE IS TIRED OF SLICING HER THROAT AND STOMACH TO MANGLED FLESH FOR THE SAKE OF OTHER PEOPLE.  But can’t stop.  But won’t stop.  Conflict:  nervous and desperate and angry and hurting and compelled to break something / anything / herself if only to be sure that she exists and that she is powerful and that she has the strength to KILL ANYONE WHO TRIES TO MAKE HER A PUPPET AGAIN.

Conflict:  rage burning underneath her skin and the knowing that she cannot breathe a word of that suffering to anyone / to him.  What she feels is ugly and she knows and if they see how bad how sick how furious how weapon - like she is they will leave.  (  saïx and xemnas taught her well.  she knows the rules.  the requirements are different.  PERFORM OR DIE.  the requirements are the same.  the performance is different.  BE GOOD OR BE ALONE.  which is the same as BE GOOD OR DIE.  )  Conflict:  nervous and desperate and angry and compelled to break something / anything / herself and if she does not expel this riotous thing somehow then it will turn her into shrapnel and she will DIE.  But can’t speak it.

Conflict:  she remembers how it felt, back before, when Xemnas brought her back and remade her into a weapon and she couldn’t fight and he would kill her if she couldn’t fight and she grew desperate and she leeched the memories and the skills from him and ———

Berserk is difficult to control, is all.

It is loud and white noise and rage overwhelming her / and she helpless in the face of it.  A puppet to her own hurt / better that than a puppet to another / BETTER THAT THAN ALONENESS OR DEATH.  Another kind of drowning.

She sequesters herself away when she does indulges this torture (  a forest, this time, decimating trees  ) but she is not impossible to find.  She doesn’t notice him; not even when his keyblade is against her own, desperate to either stop her or protect from her.  Her blood roars.  SHE IS AWARE ONLY THAT SHE HAS A TARGET.  She doesn’t notice him past the white noise roaring in her ears and her body screaming screaming PUSH FARTHER PUSH FARTHER PUSH FARTHER PUSH FARTHER BREAK BREAK BREAK ——

She doesn’t notice him until her blade meets his body and he shouts in pain, the sound familiar and sick, and her mind twists and still screams but she pauses.  His blade returns the strike in the pause she offers; not to harm but to STOP.  She flies back at the force of it, landing on her feet and the fingertips of her free hand; crouched as though she’s half - feral.  Perhaps she is.  Eyes still bright and shining.

“Axel ——”  It’s a choke of a name, voice tight.  BREAK HIM BREAK HIM BREAK HIM.  NO.  I WOULD RATHER DIE.  She wills the keyblade away and in its absence her weapon hand curls so tightly that her nails leave red half - moons in the scarred expanse of her palm.  Her mind screams.  Her body screams.  SHE WANTS TO BREAK HIM.  “Stay back —— nononononono —”

“Xion!”  His voice is sick with hurt and worry.  Her mind screams.  Legs give out and she falls to her knees, fingers tangling in her hair and pulling hard.  She curls in on herself, eyes screwed shut.  SHE NEEDS TO GET OUT OF THIS PLACE / THIS BURNING BUILDING / THIS JAGGED RIBCAGE.  NEEDS TO GET BACK TO HERSELF.  SHE CAN’T.

“Stop it,” she hisses at herself.  The reverberating need to break something doesn’t lessen.  “Just stop!”  

She isn’t aware of him until there is a familiar hand on her shoulder; her head snaps up, a GROWL against her teeth.  Lips part to tell him to GET AWAY, SHE’S NOT SAFE, but before she can manage he’s on his knees before her, folding her into a tight embrace.  Her head against his chest.

“Concentrate on my heartbeat,” he says, voice low, perilously close to tears.  Her trembling, twitching hands wrap around him and dig into his back with force enough to bruise — BREAK HIM.  He doesn’t flinch.  “Don’t listen to anything else.”  Her shoulders shudder.  She wants to BREAK HERSELF.

But she tries.  Glowing eyes wide and staring at nothing at all, and she wills her grip to loosen and her body to loosen and she listens to his heartbeat, over - fast and afraid but STEADY.  He took her back to Xemnas, once, so that he could break her, and his arms feel like the safest place in the world.  She chokes out a sob.  He holds her tighter.

“I’m sorry —” she gasps.

“Shhh.”  One of his hands is gentle in her hair, brushing through the locks.  His voice is trembling, and his hand is, too.  He’s crying.  “It’s okay.  You’re okay, Xion.”

Her grip on him loosens.  Her eyes flicker and then return to themselves.  Her shoulders tremble and she listens as his heartbeat slows and her breaths turn to saltwater sobs.  She curls against him and wants to apologize, but she is crying far too hard to do anything but cling to him and love him and feel so, so, so sorry.

fucking your mom, shitlips

who invited the skinny red twink into my home.

do i ship it?! let’s find out! accepting.

(suck) idk…….. i think lea is better with goofy, personally?

no but, actually! yes, of course i do, you… clown, writing a clown. being that it’s a crossover and a pretty random one, it probably wouldn’t have occurred to me if not for roleplay, but that’s a given i think and also doesn’t subtract from the fact that i do, genuinely, think they’d work well together. we’re still pretty early on in our ship, but knowing what i do about shouta, lea, and the plot we have going here – i think they have a lot of really interesting potential. outside of being absolutely the most chaotic duo i can imagine ( and in two very, very different ways ), i think they have enough common moral ground and same-vein motivations that a real bond could be formed?